TEMPE, Ariz. – When Cameron Maybin got to Florida, someone asked him what fans should expect.

“Stay tuned,” he said.

It has been nine years. We’re just now getting the picture.

The Angels are Maybin’s fourth club in four years. He was Detroit’s first pick in the 2005 draft, 10th overall, a 6-foot-3 thoroughbred with speed and power and personality.

He was such a commodity that he and left-hander Andrew Miller were Florida’s top requests when Detroit asked for Miguel Cabrera, who is now a two-time MVP and a probable Hall of Famer.

The Marlins had him for 144 games over three years, suffered windburn from his strikeouts and sent him to San Diego. (They also gave up on Miller, who is now one of baseball’s most lethal relievers).

The Padres gave Maybin a five-year, $25 million contract. Then they dealt him to Atlanta on the verge of opening day in 2015. Then Maybin got shipped back to Detroit last season, and to Anaheim in November, for minor league pitcher Victor Alcantara.

“They’ve seen something in me,” Maybin said, “to give me a shot. I embrace all the opportunities that come my way.”

One of those opportunities is left field. With Maybin, Mike Trout and Kole Calhoun in the outfield and with the concentric circles of Andrelton Simmons and Danny Espinoza radiating from shortstop and second base, the Angels figure to catch a lot of bloops and blasts alike.

General Manager Billy Eppler has added Maybin, Espinoza, catcher Martin Maldonado and infielder Luis Valbuena without surrendering anything painful. That makes the Angels a more experienced team, which is a nice way of saying the Angels don’t have enough young talent. Maybin would be a good mentor if there was someone to, uh, mentor.

“This is the best game in the world for building character,” Maybin said. “It’s about learning to take the bad with the good. You grow a lot more humble if you learn how to do that.”

The good began when Maybin had a splashy debut at Class A West Michigan, with a .304 average and .844 OPS.

“He showed everything you wanted to see,” said Matt Walbeck, the ex-Angels catcher who was his manager then, and now operates a baseball academy in Sacramento. “Our team was 89-48 that year, and he was a big part of that.”

But once the Marlins got Maybin they didn’t have the patience to let him find traction. When he did get a full-time chance in San Diego, he still couldn’t shake the strikeouts and injuries.

One day Maybin was watching a Braves’ exhibition game, to check out former San Diego teammate Jace Peterson. The announcers were discussing the up-the-middle teachings of batting coach Kevin Seitzer. Maybin began taking notes

In one of those spectral baseball moments, he was traded to Atlanta shortly thereafter.

“That’s where I realized what kind of player I needed to be,” Maybin said. “I’ve become a guy that’s OK without hitting for such power. It’s about using the whole field. With my athleticism, if I get on base, good things will happen.”

In Detroit last year Maybin surpassed .800 in OPS for the first time and hit .380 with men in scoring position. He was most comfortable hitting second behind Ian Kinsler, and his strikeout rate was a career-low 17.7 percent.

Back home in Asheville, N.C. Maybin is a Pied Piper. He runs a Maybin Mission baseball camp and has founded holiday programs for kids at the Salvation Army.

He was 6 months old, he said, when his father Rudy gave him a baseball, and 3 years old when he started playing. His uncles played football and his cousin Rashad McCants won an NCAA basketball title at North Carolina, but Maybin stuck with bat and glove.

“We have to be advocates for the game in the African-American community,” Maybin said. “Half the kids in my camp were African-American. Yet as they grow up they seem to think basketball and other sports are easier. We have to let them know what you can learn in baseball, and that it can give you a longer career.”

Rudy Maybin was considered one of the two best youth players in Asheville as a teenager. The other was the son of the manager of the Class-A Asheville Tourists, a kid named Cal Ripken Jr. Cameron was the Tourists’ batboy for four years.

With all the static, it’s notable that Maybin himself has stayed tuned.

“Cameron got called up right out of Double A, when he was still young,” Walbeck said. “He has had to learn how to hit on that level. It’s a hard game.”

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